Every year BBT organises an Open Day for the Brenner Base Tunnel project. They take place at the Austrian construction site H41 Sill-Pfons Gorge, and at the construction site of the Eisack Undercrossing, near Fortezza, where excavation work ended in December 2023 and the renaturation process is currently underway with the planting of 50,000 trees. This year the open day took place on the 8th June 2024.
About the project
The Mules 2-3 construction site (Lot H61) extends from the construction lot of the Eisack Undercrossing in the south to the state border with Austria. In Mules, the largest construction site of the entire BBT project, two of the three TBMs (Serena, the TBM that has completed excavation of the exploratory tunnel up to the state border; Virginia, the double-shield TBM that has completed excavation of the Italian section of the East Line Tunnel) have already reached the Brenner Pass: Flavia - the third TBM and the second double-shield TBM - is just over 2 km away from the state border and it’s going to complete excavation of the Italian section of the West Line Tunnel.
The project involves the construction of 39.8 km main tunnels and 14.8 km of exploratory tunnel, the Trens emergency stop with its access tunnel, and the by-passes connecting the main tubes every 333 m. Once Mules 2-3 is finished, all excavation work on Italian side will be completed.
The Hinterrigger plant, operated by Isocell Precompressi SpA, is located at the south portal of the exploratory tunnel and half of its 30,000 m2 is covered.
The plant produces up to 250 precast concrete segments per day, re-using approximately 30% of the spoil from the excavation of the tunnel.
The segments are then loaded onto the site trains, to be transported through the exploratory tunnel to the TBMs that install them for the final lining of the tunnels in Lot Mules 2-3.
Today more than 70% of BBT’s tunnels has been driven. Excavation work has begun on the central lots of the northern and southern access sections of the future railway infrastructure. Important progress has been made from an infrastructural and operational point of view to ensure an effective transfer of heavy traffic from road to rail by the opening date of the Brenner Base Tunnel in 2032, including the gradual completion of the access sections.
The Brenner Corridor Platform (BCP) is working on regulatory obstacles that force trains to stop at borders to change drivers and sometimes also locomotives, thus limiting the potential of rail. BCP is working to harmonise the national regulations of Italy, Austria and Germany in order to achieve seamless cross-border rail transport between Munich and Verona.
On 6 June during the BCP plenary meeting it was announced that on the existing double-track lines between Munich/Trudering-Rosenheim and Ponte Gardena-Trento full capacity utilisation will be achieved by 2030.
Click here for further information on the project, click here, at/16 and it/103 for further information in the tunnelbuilder archive. Visit https://www.bbt-se.com/. 23/24.
